Visible-light-driven magnetically recyclable terephthalic acid functionalized g-C3N4/TiO2 heterojunction nanophotocatalyst for enhanced degradation of PPCPs

A terephthalic acid functionalized g-C3N4 (TACN) was newly developed and utilized in the development of visible-light-driven magnetically recyclable TACN/TiO2/Fe3O4@SiO2 (TTFS) Z-scheme heterojunction nanophotocatalyst. The characterization was performed by BET surface area analyzer, TEM, UV-vis DRS, VSM, XRD, and XPS. To ensure its practical applicability, the experiments were also performed for real sewage effluent spiked with pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in which degradation of 97 % of the 2 mg L-1 of ibuprofen in 120 min, 94 % of the 2 mg L-1 of benzophenone-3 in 150 min, and 94 % of the 2 mg L-1 of carbamazepine in 240 min was achieved upon 330W m(-2) of integrated visible light irradiance. The recycling of the TTFS nanophotocatalyst was achieved without adopting calcination or heating within a short contact time (5 h), maintaining a photocatalytic efficiency of over 83% after 5 cycles, which proves its potential for real practical applications.